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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24185269">A Candle-Lit Reminisce</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamuraiKurai/pseuds/SamuraiKurai'>SamuraiKurai</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd Needs a Hug, Hurt/Comfort, Sad, Self-Harm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:55:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,407</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24185269</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamuraiKurai/pseuds/SamuraiKurai</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A student's passing comment on Dimitri's eye causes him to relive the hellish nights he was put through, with only his professor at his side.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Candle-Lit Reminisce</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is the first fic I've written, or short story I guess, and it's been sitting in my google docs for months now before I mustered the courage to post it here.<br/>pls be nice ;-;</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the night crept in through the window of Dimitri’s room, he found himself alone. Alone by a nightstand, he hunched over, sitting on the side of his bed with nothing but the slow flicker of the candle near him. The nights were always cold, lonely, saddening excursions into his own mind, a test of will against the ghosts that haunted him daily. Tonight, he found himself mulling over a conversation between him and that ever so strange Professor.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What happened to your eye?”</p>
<p>A younger student, fresh to the newly reconstructed academy, had interrupted Dimitri and Byleth’s own conversation. They both quieted down. Byleth had looked at Dimitri, unsure of what to say, realizing they also did not know the answer to this question. The student took Dimitri’s silence as a sign to leave, and left it alone, but Byleth’s interest had been piqued. Dimitri had continued to shrug off the question, over and over, before Byleth finally dropped it. But he knew they’d question it again, perhaps when they found more alone time, outside of the ever so busy dining hall. And that time came near the end of the night, when the Garreg Mach church bell rung out eleven loud rings, signaling to most students that it was time to get back to their lodgings. Dimitri had been walking towards his room, when he was stopped yet again by the Professor. Sighing, he had motioned Byleth to follow him into his room for this conversation. And so, he found himself here, sitting on the side of his bed, staring at the floor, the dim flicker of a candle causing a dance of shadows across his room, and across his Professor’s face, sitting on the opposite side of the room from him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It began when Garegg Mach fell. Dimitri had already felt something within him change drastically after the revelation of Edelgard’s true identity, and every single day after that was a downward spiral, one he could not comprehend nor visualize himself going down. Numerous people had tried to warn him, to his face too, but he could see no way to free himself of his torment than to have her head a on a platter.</p>
<p>“What did you think revenge would achieve?” Byleth interjected here.</p>
<p>He tried to explain what it was like. What having the faces of all your loved ones come back to you during the worst days and nights. What it was like not getting any sleep because the warm, gentle hand of your mother caressed your cheek as you laid down, yet not ever seeing her if you opened your eyes. What seeing yourself in the mirror and recognizing your fathers’ face in your own did to you. It was nightmarish. It would not leave him alone. The only one thing that all these voices, these ghosts, could ever agree on was that Edelgard needed to pay. So, he set out for that. For years, after Byleth’s disappearance and the fall of the Academy, he took to marching the plains of Fódlan alone, nothing but Areadbhar at his side, to hunt her down and eviscerate her. He was always one step behind her, but her forces did nothing to stop his progress. He slaughtered man after man, even women and children, desecrated villages even. He was a true Boar Prince. When he had left the Lions, they’d already begun scattering, but he had been the final nail in their coffin. Mercedes had taken it the hardest, crying and begging him to stay. He didn’t shed a tear. He felt nothing.</p>
<p>“Do you know what it’s like to be empty?” He asked his Professor.</p>
<p>“I can’t say I’m entirely familiar. Though my heart doesn’t beat, I still feel emotion.”</p>
<p>Dimitri shook his head. Nobody ever felt empty. Not like he had. Not like he still does, on occasion. When you lose everything, you must adapt to it, or it eats you alive. And it did eat him, but he fought and resisted as hard as he could. He had only wanted to feel again, but they wouldn’t let him. Their claws were so deep into his back, it felt like he was lugging around the expectations and desires of just as many people as Byleth had. But these were not desires you want to carry, no, these were hauntingly terrible things. Things Dimitri could no longer bring himself to say, not to his Professor especially. Not in this room, where he had made so many memories those five or six years ago.</p>
<p>“Your eye, Dimitri.” Byleth interjected once more.</p>
<p>Ah, yes, his missing eye. The one covered with a poorly stitched together patch that was tearing at the seams. How had he lost it? He always wondered if his excuses made it past the professor. A battle scar, he had called it. A lucky arrow, he had told his classmates. A poorly predicted strike of a blade. But no, it was none of these things that had caused this loss. It was something much darker, much less glorious, something he was much less willing to admit to. Something that he will forever carry, until the day he finally passes away.</p>
<p>Dimitri cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. Byleth at his face, watching the candle cast a barrage of rapidly changing shadows across him. He looked so much older than they remembered. He looked...sad. So very, very sad. The world had taken this student of his, a kindhearted noble prince, and transformed it into this creature before him. Byleth knew they still cared about him, but the dynamic had changed. Dimitri couldn’t open up to  people like he used to. He always kept his friends at a distance now. Byleth suddenly felt the urge to get up from their seat and embrace this sorrowful animal, but before they could move, Dimitri spoke up.</p>
<p>“Professor...About a year before you reappeared and found me in those ruins, I had taken shelter in the leftover remnants of a village, northwest of Garreg Mach. I stayed there for months, pursuing a lead on a nearby Imperial outpost. I slaughtered every single battalion that came through that village. I butchered those people. I stole and murdered numerous merchants for their food. I did despicable things to live, solely in the name of revenge on that accursed monster Edelgard...”</p>
<p>He paused, then took a deep breath.</p>
<p>“The fourth week I was there, one night, I... I couldn’t take it anymore. This life. This existence of mine. The crimes I’d committed, the person I’d become, the friends I’d lost, the family. These ghosts...These voices that haunt me, Professor, they’re terrifying. I see my mother. I see my father. They speak to me every night. Nowadays they tell me it’s okay, but back then, before we bested Edelgard, they made me do horrible things. I’d beg for them to let me go, to move on, to let me free of these vicious shackles that kept me to the past. But they wouldn’t go away. Night after night, I suffered through visions of Duscur, watching my family get slaughtered in front of my eyes. I didn’t sleep for days. And I had finally had enough. I had stolen a dagger from the corpse of an Imperial and took to a mirror in one of the cottages. I...”</p>
<p>He paused once more. Byleth nearly fainted at the sight of tears welling up in Dimitri’s eyes. He was not one known to cry, after all.</p>
<p>“I cut it out, Professor. I thought maybe if I got rid of it, I wouldn’t see these specters anymore. I jammed the dagger deep into my eye socket and tore it out myself, praying to the goddess that my torment would finally end.” Dimitri had broken into full sobs by this point.</p>
<p>Byleth got up and wrapped their arms around him, Dimitri leaning his head into their stomach, crying into their tunic.</p>
<p>“I just wanted it to stop.” He cried, over and over, into Byleth’s clothes.</p>
<p>“I just...wanted it to end.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Later that night, when Byleth had left his room and he had wiped his tears, he laid his head down to rest, before feeling a warm, soft hand wipe a hair out of his face, and then caress his cheek. He knew this hand well. It was the same hand that had held him when he was so very young, after all.</p>
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